1Leaf's POV
That day had started like any other for me, I was scouting around some random areas away from the crew for awhile to seek out any tips on potential adventures for our idiot captain, who had been complaining of boredom for weeks now.
Of course my mini den-den-mushi never left my person when I was out for extended periods like this, though Luffy has to be kept away from the receiver or he'll check for more adventures every minute, sometimes half.
It wasn't an easy job but I'm lucky enough to have a good ear and good intuition thanks to the time I ate the truth truth fruit when I was little. One of the fruits abilities is that I can understand the emotions behind anything I read or hear as if it had come from my own mind, the trickier part is the interpretation into context and unsaid information, as well as picking out where to look for information.
Normally adventures just come to the straw hats where ever they happen to go, but now that they've already found the one piece they have to go around looking for there own adventures, of course there's still more on the agenda, things to do, people to beat, stuff like that, but there are many more adventures to be had and we're not in any particular rush at the moment so it seems it was decided we'll just take those things as they come, like always.
Currently I was looking into rumours about a cave with a strange mist where singing could be heard, that didn't particularly scream adventure at all, but it seemed I could tell there was more they weren't saying when they were talking about this cave, it was something they wouldn't say, and that's always an indicator for something worth at least looking into.
Problem is I still needed a location, so far I couldn't even get enough information to find a name to call it by.
I tried looking around the island a couple times and four three caves, but none of them seemed to be what the villagers spoke of.
I went down to the beach again where two of the three were found. I walked around the shore looking again at the cliffs trying to spot another cave.
After a wile of searching I felt my foot hit something and looked down to find a strange blue crystal like thing, it was shaped like a rectangular prism with a square pyramid attached to each end, the color was lighter around the edges and darker on the inside, it was about the size of two of a grown man's fists stacked on top of each other I made sure to note as I picked it up, inspecting it.
"Something like this doesn't just drift in from anywhere, I'd best report this to Nami," I said taking out the den-den-mushi.
"Hey, found something interesting already? Not too dangerous I hope?" It was ussop who answered.
"What are you saying? The more danger the more fun!" Luffy could be heard winning in the background.
"You shut up!" Came Nami's voice accompanied by a bang. "So you found out about some kind of treasure right?" She asked hopefully.
"Mmm... Sort of, I actually stumbled across one treasure, it looks like a gem, but it's a little odd and way too big for jewelry. In any case you something like this doesn't just wash up at random, there's probably more near by, I still need more information regarding the adventure part though," I explained.
Luffy's disappointment about the adventure was audible but Nami quickly conceded him other wise with that way she has, or rather taking advantage of his simpleness.
"Alright, way to go! We'll be there in less then a week!" Nami said enthusiastically.
"Okay, see you then," I agreed outing the den-den-mushi away.
In case your wondering how they can maneuver anywhere so easily on the grand line in less then a week, the answer is Nami. Nami's always been the greatest navigator around but now that she's got so much experience to back her up she can even figure everything out ahead of time. I these days Nami knows most every island on the grand line. Oh, she's also collecting etenal poses now too, actually with those, she almost didn't even need a log pose anymore, almost.
After putting away the den-den-mushi and the gem I heard a strange sound, I looked around and sure enough there it was again.
It was coming from around one of the caves that I'd found earlier. Curious, I walked over to It, when I looked inside I was dumbfounded. When I checked before it was only about five feet, now it branched off into two tunnels, one looked fairly bright and the other appierd long and to get darker farther in.
"Luffy, I think I found your adventure..." I said in awe.
Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and I desired to check the brighter path first.
This one was fairly short there were holes in the wall, I remembered seeing those on the outside, interesting. The path ended around a small pond, it looked beautiful in the dim lighting.
Without thinking I reached to dip my hand in. Then, just as it brushed the surface, I heard that strange sound again.
From inside the cave the sound seemed fuller and more mysterious.
I headed back down and turned towards the darker path, then the sound echoed again.
Just then I had a thought and took out a tone dile from my bag, ussop sometimes loned me some of his diles when I go to a island alone like this, he says you never know when they'll come in handy. Plus I also have a few of my own, but that doesn't really matter right now.
With the dile out I cautiously started walking into the darker part of the cave, when the sound came again I made sure to record it before placing it back into my bay.
As I walked further in it eventually started getting a little brighter till I came to a room that was filled with a deep mist.
The sound came again and I knew this was the room it was coming from, I didn't understand it but I knew.
From the same room the sound seemed less majestic and mysterious and more just outright intimidating.
Suddenly I became aware that something in here was gradually, but still quickly, becoming brighter and I was suddenly feeling very groggy.
That's all I remember before I found myself having trouble breathing with a bursting pain in my lungs and opening my eyes to find myself underwater, I was starting to feel weak too.
Oh, if only I had air, I doubt a single person would be able to understand even one of the curses that would be poring out my mouth right about now.
Damn, I am so screwed I don't even know where to begin thinking of how to get out of this one... Hell, I don't even know how I got into this one!
Soddenly a growing pink figure that seemed to be becoming more pronounced. Actually I think it was coming towards me. Then it suddenly started glowing and the next thing I knew I was on the ground in grassy area having a coughing fit.
After the water was finally out of my system I rested a bit just appreciating the air.
Suddenly a strange, flying, pink cat like thing popped into my vision, at first I nearly had a heart attack but calmed down after remembering the pink thing from before (after all, not like the grand line doesn't have weirder... Doesn't it...?).
"Are you the one that saved me?" I asked the creature.
"Mew Mew!" It responded cheerfully (yup!).
"I see, thank you for that." I said, scratching the back of my neck as I smiled.
"Mew, Mew Mew?" It replied (no problem, but why didn't you just swim?).
I laughed nervously "I can't" I told it.
"Mew Mew?" (You don't know how?) It seemed surprised.
"Mmm... It's not that I don't know, I ate a development fruit..." I sighed.
"Mew?" (A what?) It asked.
"A devil fruit, it's a fruit that grants you special abilities if you eat it, but in exchange you'll be cursed, the sea will hate you and you'll lose your ability to swim, or so they say, but no one really knows how exactly it works, just the results. As for me I ate the truth truth fruit, that's the reason I'm able to understand what your trying to say even though you've only said one thing this whole time." I explained with a grin.
"Mew Mew..." (Sounds complicated...) It said wile staring at me.
I laughed "I guess at first. But it isn't really as long as you don't bother with the details too much," I cheered.
"I'm Leaf by the way." I added.
"Mew?" (Leaf?) It asked.
"Mm... Well, it was a friends idea, I had amnisa and they needed something to call me and I didn't really mind so... Besides, compared to eyelash and scissors, I'd say I was the lucky one," I laughed.
"Mew..." (Wow...) It gawked.
"You can call me Green if you prefer though, sometimes I think I like that one better to be honest," I grinned.
"Mew MewMew!" (That's even worse!) It laughed.
"So, what about you?" I asked.
"Mew Mew!" (Mew is Mew!) It cheered.
"Hm... Simple enough, I like it, nice to meet you Mew," I grinned.
"Mew, Mew Mew!" (Same to you Green!) Mew said wile doing somersaults in the air, making me laugh at (A/N: I don't care how I call Mew any more... don't mind it if I go back and forth ok?) his energy.
I decided it was about time I checked something important and pulled out my piece of Luffy's Vivi card that Sabo made, only to become concerned when it didn't move.
'I was afraid of that...' I thought as I again pulled out the den-den-mushi.
Nami's POV
The den den mushi rang again and I quickly picked it up to answer.
"Found more treasure?!" I asked excitedly.
"Afraid not, but I've definitely confirmed there's a adventure to be had there," Leaf replied.
"Alright!" Luffy Cheered behind me.
I glared at him to shut up.
"Unfortunately, I now have no clue where I am and the Vivi card's not working." She continued.
"The Vivi card won't work?!" I yelled in shook.
That's not possible! A Vivi card would work for as long as a person lived. Luffy was stang right in front of her, running around like an idiot with Usopp and Chopper doing who knows what, but they all suddenly stopped when they heard what she'd said.
"Mm, the surroundings don't look like anywhere I've been before, there seem to be a lot of creatures I've never seen before too... The suns position in the sky also seems to have changed faster then it should have..." Leaf concluded.
It wasn't entirely clear how it worked, but Leaf's devil fruit ability seemed to make her particularly good at evaluation and deduction, which I suppose makes sense, since it was called the truth truth fruit, but there aren't many, if any, fruits that I know of with such varying effects. I sometimes I wonder how Leaf could have come across such a strange devil fruit.
We had figured it out when she sank time and time again that she must have eaten one.
Figuring out which one it was, was more difficult, every once in a wile we would notice strange things about her. The first, and the one that was harder to notice was her way of sometimes just knowing things she shouldn't. It wasn't anything big, just subtle insight or strong agreement or disagreement with speculation that overtime proved accurate more and more often.
The only obvious one was that she could understand animals just as well as Chopper. But more surprising was when she could understand ancient writing like Robin could even though she knew nothing of the language itself. Though the real shocker was she could not only understand any language she heard or saw, but even be understood by those who didn't understand the language she was speaking. Her writing didn't seem to have the same effect though.
Sometimes she would notice a little detail and become strictly focused on it for reasons she claimed not to understand, only for something to happen with it latter on. It became just frequent enough that they desided to officially stop choking it up as intuition or a lucky guess.
I still remember the time we we're trying to remember an area we had quickly run through and Leaf managed to recall it in thurowenough detail to make all our mouths drop open. The girl herself had brushed it off saying she had been daydreaming and admiring their surroundings wile they were running, but we had come and gone in less then three seconds and she depicted it down to some of the quantities of various items on the stands.
I'm not saying she always knew what to do, what was going on, or anything of the sort, most the time it happened wile she was spacing out.
The one thing she always knew was when she heard a lie of when someone was purposely with holding the truth. That's how we figured out which devil fruit it was, apparently Sanji read a book about them when he was a kid and he managed to recognize that part.
We later discuvered she could also tell how similar different things she'd seen before were. A forest may look like any other forest to you and me, but she would take in the tree verity and growth tendencies and even the composition of the ground she was looking at if she had to, and wile she wouldn't know anything about their identity or anything, she could compare it to other places she'd been enough to figure out if she knew anything that might tell her something important like where she might be. Which was why it was so weird that she couldn't recognize anything where she was, that ment she was somewhere with nothing noticeably in comen to anywhere she's been before.
Not only that but she's become well studied enough to actually be able to judge and explain much of what she couldn't before. She should be able to tell where she is to some degree from what she's learned about her observations. Also as a informant she gathers lots of information, if there were some crazy exception, she should have herd about it and have made a connection to where she is right now.
No such thing.
Not a good sign when combined with a Vivi card of a living, breathing, person standing right in front of me failing to work.
"What sort of creatures? What do they taste like?" Luffy asked, snatching the den den mushi away from me, mouth watering, eyes sparkling.
"Mew Mew?!" I heard a high pich sound from the den den mushi.
"No, I'm going to eat you!" I heard Leaf hiss at someone, I guess one of the creatures.
"Huh? There's one there?" Luffy asked surprised.
"Yeah... I sort of almost drowned and it fished me out," Leaf explained.
"You what?!" I snapped. 'Since when did she start taking after these idiots in that respect?!' I thought in irritation. I know she looks up to them sometimes but she's always managed to veer away from extreme idiocy.
"I don't really get it, but one second I was investigating a cave that had suddenly become larger the next second I was deep under water." Leaf explained.
"And then that creature saved you?" Chopper asked.
"Mew Mew!" The creature cried.
"Oh, your name's Mew? Sorry," Chopper corrected bashfully.
"That's right Chopper," Leaf said in answer to his original question.
"So what's this creature look like?" Usopp asked curiously.
"A small, strangely shaped, flying, pink cat," Leaf answered with no hesitation.
"It flys?! Cool! Hey! Flying cat! Join my crew!" Luffy excitedly demanded and I promptly stomped his face into the ground.
"DON'T ASK SOME STRANGE CREATURE YOU HAVEN'T EVEN MET YET TO JOIN US!" I screamed at him.
I could hear Leaf laughing on the other end.
"-ut wit -aved weaf fo wit wust we a -ood ferson!" (But it saved Leaf so it must be a good person!) Luffy complained fr underneath my foot.
"Mew Mew?" I heard the creature say.
"Aw, we're a group of pirates and Luffy is our captain." Leaf explained.
"Mew Mew Mew!?" Mew exclaimed, making Leaf burst out laughing and Chopper smile awkwardly as he chuckled a bit himself.
"What? What did it say?" Usopp asked, confused.
"He said: 'The stupid one is!?'" Chopper translated.
I face palmed in exasperation as Usopp mirrored Chopper.
"Mew, Mew Mew? Mew?" Mew seemed to be asking another question.
"Now what's it saying?" I asked.
"It's asking why we're so care free and what we plan to now." Chopper translated.
"Shishishishi, well, isn't it obvious?" Luffy, who had made a quick recovery after I removed my foot beamed, giving me a sinking feeling in my stomach.
"We're going to catch up with Leaf and get started on anther adventure!" He cheered as the rest of us browned, having known this was coming.
"Mew Mew..." The small creature said and we didn't even need a translator to understand the 'oh,.. I see...'
"I suppose I'll start gathering information here then," Leaf chuckled.
"Right! And we'll head to the island you were investigating!" Luffy grinned in excitement.
He turned to me and I sighed in exasperation before I started barking orders and we set sail.